A Raisin in the Sun (2008) (TV)

Director:

Kenny Leon

Writers (WGA):

Paris Qualles (teleplay)
Lorraine Hansberry (play)

Release Date:

25 February 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An African-American family struggles with poverty, racism, and inner conflict as they strive for a better way of life. Based on the play by Lorraine Hansberry.

Plot Keywords:

Family | Based On Play

Cast

Paula Boudreau
Alexandra Cheron	...	Anna
Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs	...	Walter Lee Younger
Elle Downs	...	Cocktail Waitress
Ron C. Jones	...	Willy
Sanaa Lathan	...	Beneatha Younger
Justin Martin	...	Travis
Audra McDonald	...	Ruth Younger
Bill Nunn	...	Bobo
David Oyelowo	...	Asagai
Phylicia Rashad	...	Lena Younger
John Stamos	...	Carl Lindner
Paul Stephen	...	North Shore Businessman
Emily Swiss	...	Priscilla
Sean Patrick Thomas	...	George

Runtime:

131 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group

Trivia:

TV version of the Tony award-winning 2004 play revival, with same director and most of the lead-cast: Kenny Leon, 'Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs' , Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and Bill Nunn.

Goofs:

Continuity: When they are packing up the apartment, Momma is working on putting sticks around a small plant to protect it to wrap it. The number and location of the sticks are not in sync with the timing.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Dreams Worth While: The Journey of 'A Raisin in the Sun' (2008) (V)

Individual's transformation is the theme of this adaptation

It is said that an author must have a measured amount of distance (in terms of time) from her subject matter before she can write about it. This is to give her time to digest and let the the incident settle in her mind and emotion so that she may do justice to her work. Lorraine Hansberry's novel was written in the 1950's at the height of urban white discrimination and censorship against blacks. This adaption is done some 50 years later at a time when the arts are freer to touch on sensitive issues and at a vantage point where we can see how the white American mindset and value system have played themselves out over the course of 50 years.

Lena Younger is the wise matriarch of a black household residing in an apartment in the urban black section of Chicago in the 1950's. The family is blessed to be humbled and to have a loving and trusting relationships within the household. The well-being of the household is shattered by the expectation and subsequent arrival of a small fortune, a $10,000 life insurance payment to Lena. The expectation of the money is seen as seed money by Lena's son, Walter Lee. Walter Lee has a dead-end job, a chauffeur working for a snobbish white boss. The expectation of the money spawns Walter Lee's imagination as seed money to achieve economic freedom through a business of his own. Berneatha, Lena's daughter is an artsy, spontaneous type person who looks forward towards using the money to finance her education to become a doctor, a technical discipline. Ruth, Walter Lee's wife, is expecting and see any additional money as just another way to get by. Lena would like to use the money to provide for the practical future needs of the household and doesn't personally need any funds for herself. The story points out how each of the mentioned character's greedy self-interest, as shaped by the American value system of the time and still applies today, is drawn out as result of the expectation of the $10,000. The money becomes the distraction that takes attention and gratitude away from the most important of family fortunes: the gift of humbleness and the appreciation of the simplicity that harmonized, and lent contentment to the household for all those years before the subject of money ever came into being.